The year 2011 brought many great toy lovers together in Mexico City for a monthly series of collecting and enjoying a wide range of muñecas y juguetes. Please enjoy the photos below. Thank you oh you wonderful El Garfio for providing the pixels.

Enjoy!

P.S. The MUJAM Museo del Juguete Antiguo México shows continue. Find out more.

Bye for now! We shall see you again soon!

Ensueño Toys of Mexico in the 1970s brought some of the best toys for the WorldMEGO lovers to enjoy for decades. In this video clip of a promotional event starring the great Chavelo with his man-child persona, you will witness MEGO’s 2-XL Robot in Spanish, the MEGO SpiderTrax vehicle for Hombre de Araña and Rodrigo easily answer 2-XL’s question about Fernando Valenzuela. This is a really great moment for those who followed Dodgers baseball 30 years ago.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLKAdlVOqQg

The 8-track tape in 2-XL was customized for this promotional event. Listen and you will hear 2-XL call Chavelo by name. And just listen to 2-XL sing! WOW!

The beautiful SpiderTrax shown here belongs to the Super Collector Brian Heiler of Plaidstallions, ForeignMEGO and MEGOMuseum fame. Thanks for allowing us to use these photos, man. Simply gorgeous!

We are back with another important piece of MEGO history from the Ensueño promotional television specials. Elastico Hulk! And for good measure, Elastico Plasticman! Both boxed. Both impossible to find. Both awe-inspiring.

The Superman and Batman Flyaways are certainly worth an important mention too. Man, those kids did really well that day. And as much as we enjoy the Comic Book Superheroes, if someone found boxed Ensueño Korinas and MagnaDoodles, we would do some cartwheels in celebration. So start looking!

Enjoy!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FdyMxUvrHQ

This television special aired a handful of times and served to promote the Ensueño Muñecas y Juguetes toy lines. (Does anyone do anything close to this nowadays?) Kids would participate by competing in low pressure head-to-head match-ups in how they best use the toys they had a chance to try out. All the winners took home Ensueño toys as prizes. And to top if off, Chavelo hosted the proceedings with his fun-loving brand of celebrity. He was HUUUUGE in Mexico at the time.

While there is a lot to see, from the girl dolls to 2-XL and on to MagnaDoodle and Computerized Vehicles (Batrax, Spidertrax, Corvetto Computerizado), you will likely flip your skull when you check out three Mexican Elastics: Superman, Batman and Plasticman. Two of them are in boxes and one gets a nice stretch from Ileana, who was the big winner in the talking doll competition . . . which, by the way, was really quite funny!

For now, enjoy Christmastime in April. Feliz Navidad!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G5XTMxEOA0

Look at the wall! Boxed Elastic Superman, Batman and Hulk! Did you hear what I said?

Elastic Hulk from Mexico! Of course, there’s also a Flying Batman, too!

And if I ever find those talking dolls that are also on the wall, I’ll make some movies of me playing house.

We flipped when these photos made their way to us. Mexico’s toy historians know how to have a good time and remain active in their field. The Antique Toy Museum of Mexico (El Museo del Juguete Antiguo México) organizes shows and exhibits to feature some of the best heritage toy collections. Last year, Luis Felipe Portillo put on display his monumental Lili Ledy GI Joe collection (Aventureros de Accion) and it always boggles the mind.

Whether inside a Banksy & quirky graffiti’d street art warehouse or outside meandering through the plaza in an open air knick-knack market, there is no doubt that Mexico is the place to be for folks who read this blog. Pack your bags!

If you ever sold me some 80s toys, they might just be right here.

I'd like my coffee table to look like this. . . .more often, that is.

I want some video of people getting this section ready. Holy Wow!

Bansky goes well with Smurfs.

Everything is better with wrestling!

You'll definitely find something for your kitchen wall here.

And that’s all for now. We will get more photographs of all the fun we are not having.

Stay tuned for news about a WorldMEGO pilgrimage to the Golden Land — México.

We had the great opportunity to discuss the old days with some of the original creators of the Mexican toy company, Ensueño Muñecas y Juguetes (Dolls and Toys). They were in direct competition with Lili Ledy, EXIN, Plastimarx and CIPSA for the children’s toy market in the 1970s, and obtained a few licenses from MEGO for distribution of toys in Mexico. Ensueño means “Beautiful Dream” and that passion came through every word we heard from these wonderful people.

After developing the name for their company, and fooling around with the look of the letters, as graphic artists do, the idea of the caterpillar emerged. They were experienced in comic book art and also picked up work with Hanna Barbera to supplement the toy income. The caterpillar was formed by using all lower-case letters and adding some details. In the television commercials, the caterpillar Ensueño logo even comes to life and crawls across the screen.

Of all the boxes for the six different Voladores Articulados (Vuela de Verdad means “They truly fly”), the Superman box we looked at together held a lot of importance. One of the attendees was the box artist and had not seen an example of it since the mid-1980s, when the lucky neighborhood kids received their Ensueño overstock as holiday gifts. It was a stroke of graphic genius to use the box packaging as the telephone booth. That doubled the play value of the toy.

The work involved in making Ensueño Toys a successful business meant that the creators were always making everything. They worked in the design room and on the production line. They filmed, edited, looped, directed, produced and distributed their own television commercials. Kids in the area would star in them. Hair dryers were used to create wind effects. It was a labor of love from start to finish and through pure ingenuity they managed every aspect of the business.

Three sealed Ensueño figures in my arms and standing with a mastermind. What an honor!

With the camera rolling, fresh food and watermelon juice at the ready, we talked about CIPSA Apes, Ensueño Elastics, Lili Ledy Heroes, and all of the USA companies and top executives trying to get into the Mexican market. MEGO, Mattel and Kenner had their hands full with the various lines they pushed through different companies in Mexico. But over and over again, we heard that American businessmen really didn’t stand a chance to make it big down in Mexico without the support and assistance of the locals. We also discussed the impact of NAFTA, and how that brought along the end of their ability to compete and make a living in toys. Eventually, TYCO bought Ensueño and things changed forever.

These Lili Ledy Superheroes are small and you have to make them move by yourself. That was not what kids wanted back then, according to folks at Ensueño. And maybe they were right. Kids today still want big motorized toys.

Resources were often scarce during some of the heavy toy-making seasons, due to shortages from importers. This led to looting by other toy companies. Packaging cardboard was frequently stolen from factories, and that forced creative marketing solutions, such as showroom buying and television game show giveaways. We have an hour long television special hosted and sponsored by Ensueño and it is amazing to see so many boxed Elastic Heroes in one place. It will be available for viewing soon.

Ensueño Muñecas y Juguetes, we love you!

If there were video recordings to show you the events involving the theft of these Ensueño Spiderman and Batman heads, we would have to ask the young children to leave the room. Really! A recent find of these heads in Mexico prompted the folks here at WorldMEGO to seek out some reliable information from former members of Ensueño’s managerial and creative staff.

According to our sources, these heads were stolen by factory line workers by placing them inside of their VaJayJays. We were advised to wash the heads and our hands when receiving the goods. We also learned that there were no leftovers on the factory line because all defective or flawed heads were sent back around to the melting pot for another go around in the molds. That made sense. It wasn’t an easy endeavor for a small toy Mexican toy factory to make products with limited resources. Recycling was good business.

That perspective helped lend credence to the story that these good condition unpainted Ensueño Spiderman and Batman heads survived by hiding out in a . . . secret location.

It certainly is an unusual story that gets told every time someone asks about the pink squishy hero head on the coffee table. Seeing a bag full of them, well, that really activates the imagination. Enjoy!

. . wonder how long it took to get this many out of the factory . . .

More interesting and exciting Ensueño updates are coming soon to http://WorldMEGO.com

Turning our attention back to those wild Ensueño hero figures, it’s the Man Spider! The tall 13″ blow mold body is shared with Batman and Superman. Other than the heads and suits changing, each of the three figures received different boot styles. Spiderman got some web lines in his boots to match his head. The spider emblem on his chest is pretty sweet, and it even has eight legs. Sometimes Ledy Spiderman emblems had ten legs.

Vuela de Verdad! That's no joke! He "really flies!" And yes, he is articulated, if straight up and down movement on his arms and legs are enough for you.

Hook this guy up to the ceiling and go wild! Take a good look at the instructions. You could likely build your own fly kit.

Bryan and one of his favorite toys having some fun.

Be sure you turn on the sound

Goodness gracious, those accessories hardly ever turn up on the marketplace.

Here we have the always interesting Ensueño Superman made in Mexico, with Fly-Away Action!

The figure is 13 inches tall. The body is blow molded and is very light. The bodysuit is a rough fabric and the boots are screwed on to the body in order to properly house the wiring that runs in back and through the left leg. A small propeller sits on the bottom of the left foot and with the battery properly inserted in back and the switch enabled, the propeller turns and Superman can fly. You just need one more piece of Fly-Away Action on top of him. Through the cape, which has a slit ready, you feed a string and tie it to the back of the figure right along the waistline and off he goes at 0.7 miles per hour!

The one pictured on the left has an original cape. Both have original heads, bodies, suits, belts and boots. Emblems on both are likely reproductions. Below are pictures of the back and the original caped example with the original diamond-shaped slit in that cape to pass the string through.

The head sculpt is impressive and the Superman head has been known to go gray more than the other Ensueño figures, such as Batman, Spiderman, Mighty Mouse and PlasticMan.

It is interesting to note that the feet are nothing more than square stumps inside of those boots.

Be sure not to miss the photos at the bottom! Thank you, Mister Man LuisFelipe! WOOT!

Mighty Mouse feet on left (he gets screws in both feet, not sure why), Batman feet on right. Check out the original Ensueño Whirligig blades! They are very difficult to obtain out of the package.

Batman on the left, Superman on the right. Both without the Whirligig blades, but with the motor device, left boot screw and inside wiring.

Be careful, his packaging is really a phone booth! What a fine idea! "Articulado" refers to how his limbs can move like the 12" Chewbacca, but everyone was very excited about five points of articulation back then. "Vuela de Verdad" tells us that Superman REALLY FLIES! The device really will blow your mind. Check the next photo!

I would kill to have been in the R&D room when this idea was pitched.